NEW YORK, June 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America, Inc. (MHIA) today announced plans to work with Atlanta-based Southern Company to demonstrate Mitsubishi's carbon dioxide (CO2) capture process at a coal-fired power generation plant, a major step toward the commercialization of technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal flue gas.
The CO2 capture technology, known as the KM-CDR process(TM), was developed by MHIA's parent company, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd (MHI) of Japan in conjunction with Kansai Electric of Japan. Detailed engineering and procurement for the project will be conducted by MHIA from its office in Austin, Texas.
The project is being funded by MHI, Southern Company and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), along with other partners. The Mitsubishi system will be installed on an existing unit of Southern Company subsidiary Alabama Power's Plant Barry near Mobile, Ala., to capture carbon dioxide emissions from the equivalent of 25 megawatts of generation capacity.
By pairing this project with the U.S. Department of Energy's Southeast Regional Partnership Phase III sequestration program, the complete process of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) will be demonstrated. Scheduled to be in operation by early 2011, the project will capture 500 metric tons of CO2 per day and supply it for sequestration, or storage, in a deep underground saline rock formation located beneath a nearby oil field.
'We are very excited to be party to this important project that is the critical next step in our development plans for full commercial deployment of the KM-CDR process(TM) for coal-based applications,' said Mitch Morimoto, MHIA President and CEO.
'An additional benefit is that the captured CO2 could be used by the oil and gas industry for enhanced oil recovery, which helps to offset the cost of capture,' Morimoto added. 'For every ton of CO2 the oil companies inject into a depleting oil field, they get a return of several incremental barrels of oil. Our vision is two-fold with our capture technology: to become a leader in the effort to reduce global CO2 emissions, and to optimize the use of our technology to help us to be less dependent on foreign oil imports.'
The MHI process offers significantly improved performance over the similar technologies offered today, which ultimately lowers its overall cost impact to electric utilities.
